Surprise party

To welcome Javi home from camp and show him how much we missed him, Billy and I planned a surprise pool party for the Friday night after he returned from camp. We invited a handful of his buddies, ordered a stack of pizzas, and stocked up on pool toys. We also had some help -- Angela made a great welcome home banner that all the kids could sign for Javi to keep as a memento.

I picked Javi up at 1 pm but the party wasn't scheduled to start until 6 pm (with Billy keeping Javi away a while longer so everyone could get in place). Javi kept asking if he was going to get a surprise party (which he'd told me before leaving for camp would be really awesome)... but I played it down. "Oh, I don't think so buddy - we'll celebrate with Daddy and Bella later."

So when Billy rolled him up to the pool at 6:15 pm, the poor child didn't really know what to think. He just stood there for a moment with a big, confused grin on his face before rushing over to his friends to tell them all about camp and regale them with stories about how he had to take a swimming test and did they know what COOL stands for?!

The party was great and everyone had a blast. The Gordons brought the Casey kids, Angela brought Darrian, and we had Aaron, Camden, and Caleb dropped off.

I don't know if I have the energy for another pool party in the near future, but that went much better than I could've expected. And Javi was beaming. What more could I ask for?